Where's the Abundance of Perth Mint Rounds?

(No wonder you can't find any!)

Silver Stock Report

by Jason Hommel, September 6, 2008

If the Perth Mint has $880 million worth of silver and gold in
inventory from their certificate program, to use as working inventory to
make coins, then why aren't they producing many Australian coins that
should be flooding the marketplace and available everywhere at close to
spot prices?

Let me explain why I hammer Perth so mercilessly. The Perth Mint
has issued silver certificates. Investors trust them. Perth
has issued those silver certificates for a reason, a reason that silver
investors should love.

As they are a mint, they need an "operating pool" of physical metal to
use as inventory for operations, to be able to make silver coins to sell
to the public in the form of one ounce rounds. This is a fantastic
reason, and I would support that 100%, especially if they buy more silver
as needed, buying one ounce for every ounce sold. In theory, that
would mean that there could never be a silver shortage at the Perth
Mint. There is especially no reason for a silver shortage to exist
at Perth, given that Australia exports over 400 tonnes of silver each
year! The Perth Mint could never run out of silver to sell if that
program was run honestly, in stark contrast to the U.S. mint, which is
suffering a shortage of blanks.

In fact, the current world-wide shortage of investment silver, such as
one ounce coins, means that the world desperately needs a functional mint
with plenty of silver for operations.

But Perth does not produce one ounce rounds for the public in bulk form
at just above spot prices, as other mints do. Why not? Why
can't they?

For example, the Canadian Mint produces silver Maples 3-5 million per
year, and the U.S. Mint produces silver Eagles, about 10-20 million per
year, and Austria is now producing silver Philharmonics, and France, I
hear, may also start producing silver again, too. http://www.monnaiedeparis.fr/actualite/eurosOrArgent.htm

And all of these are available at between $2-3 per ounce over the spot
price, and sometimes now at over $4/oz., due to the shortages of
silver.

That's $48 over the spot price for Perth 1 oz. rounds! Isn't that
a 369% premium over the spot price?!

What's the problem here? Shouldn't they be able to produce silver
coins like the U.S., Canada, and Austria? Perhaps Perth doesn't have
enough silver in their "working inventory" to produce more?

But they have issued $880 million worth of gold and silver certificates
to the public, and therefore, should have plenty of working
inventory. In fact, it is so much working inventory, that it amounts
to an entire year's worth of investment demand for silver.

Net investment demand for silver is estimated at 60 million oz. by the
CPM group, which, at $13/oz. is only $780 million!

Perth has is so much working inventory, that even if the Perth Mint had
to wait for a 1 year hold time for delivery to replace their inventory,
they would still be able to supply nearly 100% of the silver that the
investment world needs, and they could supply it with no delays to the
public whatsoever!

It is so much working inventory, that if the Perth Mint had to wait 1
month for supplies of all new silver, they could provide 12 times the
world's annual silver demand, and all silver investors everywhere would be
buying nothing but Perth Mint Australian one ounce coins, and no other
forms of silver whatsoever.

If only 1/10th of the $880 million of gold and silver certificates is
in silver (and they don't reveal what percentage it is), then that would
be $88 million. Divide by $13 = 6.8 million ounces of silver.
If that much were minted monthly, that would come out to 81 million one
ounce rounds, which would be 4 times as many coins minted by the U.S.
Mint.

Therefore, one would think that if the Perth Mint was honorable, that
the Perth Mint should be producing far more silver ounces than the U.S.
Mint each year, at a lower cost, and that we would see those in abundance
in the marketplace.

But Perth does not issue coins like that. You cannot buy
Australian bullion coins in bulk. Why is that? I think the answer is obvious.

Where is the abundance of Perth Mint rounds? There is no
abundance. They are scarce.

It appears to me that Perth's silver in their certificate program,
"used for operations" was used to cover unprofitable operations, for
years, and that in actual fact, they have no working inventory, or they
have less than 1% of the $880 million worth of inventory, barely enough to
meet some redemptions and orders on occasion.

Over 50 people have continually complained to me of shortages of silver
from the Perth Mint, in my prior emails exposing them. Why are these
people complaining to me? Do I have the words "Perth Mint Customer
Service Rep" tattooed on my forehead, or in my disclaimer? No.